Give Blood: fence saber against a left-handed man

Nowadays, one sees many a humoroust-shirt with variations on the theme "Give Blood: Play {insert violent sport here}." Highly amusing.

Well, just the other day, as I was leaving a particularly painful practice session, I came to the rather disturbing realization that I had just dripped blood all over the fresh, newly purchased, pristine pair of khakis I was about to change into. This was largely the result of the numerous gashes decorating my knuckles, which were themselves the result of having faced a left-handed opponent that day.

Needless to say, a lengthy diatribe about my opponent's sanitary habits, parentage, taste in clothing, ability to fence, and probable affection for barnyard fowl soon followed. I eventually reached the (admittedly irrational) conclusion that left-handed people should be banned from fencing altogether, or perhaps simply brained with a large rock.

It just looks painful, regardless of what hand your opponent fences with. ::shudder::

But in all seriousness, facing a left-handed opponent is hell (for me at least), especially in foil, my weapon of choice.

Why foil specifically? In epee and sabre, at least you can aim for their extended left hand and arm. In foil you cannot; you have to go for their torso. The kicker, though, is that they defend their torso entirely differently than a right-handed opponent--when you face a lefty in epee or sabre, you pretty much go after their hands and arms just as you would a right-handed opponent (it's just a protruding extremity, after all), but the chest is another beast completely because all of their parries and attacks are inverted. I HATE fencing lefties.

You can also "prove" that left-handed fencers have a statistical advantage by the informal matrix below:

So, you have a matrix in which a right-handed fencer is awkward anytime they're facing a left-handed fencer, while a left-handed fencer is only awkward while facing another lefty--and even then, they're BOTH awkward, so no one has a clear advantage.